R Projects For Dummies
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To complete any project using R, you work with functions that live in packages designed for specific areas. This cheat sheet provides some information about these functions.

Interacting with users with R functions

Here’s a selection of statistical functions that come with the standard R installation. You’ll find many others in R packages. R provides the shiny package and the shinydashboard package for developing interactive applications. Here are selected functions from these packages:

Central Tendency and Variability
Function What it Calculates
mean(x) Mean of the numbers in vector x.
median(x) Median of the numbers in vector x
var(x) Estimated variance of the population from which the numbers in vector x are sampled
sd(x) Estimated standard deviation of the population from which the numbers in vector x are sampled
scale(x) Standard scores (z-scores) for the numbers in vector x

 

Relative Standing

Function What it Calculates
sort(x) The numbers in vector x in increasing order
sort(x)[n] The nth smallest number in vector x
rank(x) Ranks of the numbers (in increasing order) in vector x
rank(-x) Ranks of the numbers (in decreasing order) in vector x
rank(x, ties.method= "average") Ranks of the numbers (in increasing order) in vector x, with tied numbers given the average of the ranks that the ties would have attained
rank(x, ties.method=  "min") Ranks of the numbers (in increasing order) in vector x, with tied numbers given the minimum of the ranks that the ties would have attained
rank(x, ties.method = "max") Ranks of the numbers (in increasing order) in vector x, with tied numbers given the maximum of the ranks that the ties would have attained
quantile(x) The 0th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 100th percentiles (i.e, the quartiles) of the numbers in vector x. (That’s not a misprint: quantile(x) returns the quartiles of x.)

 

T-tests

Function What it Calculates
t.test(x,mu=n, alternative = "two.sided") Two-tailed t-test that the mean of the numbers in vector x is different from n.
t.test(x,mu=n, alternative = "greater") One-tailed t-test that the mean of the numbers in vector x is greater than n.
t.test(x,mu=n, alternative = "less") One-tailed t-test that the mean of the numbers in vector x is less than n.
t.test(x,y,mu=0, var.equal  = TRUE, alternative = "two.sided") Two-tailed t-test that the mean of the numbers in vector x is different from the mean of the numbers in vector y. The variances in the two vectors are assumed to be equal.
t.test(x,y,mu=0, alternative = "two.sided", paired  = TRUE) Two-tailed t-test that the mean of the numbers in vector x is different from the mean of the numbers in vector y. The vectors represent matched samples.

 

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

Function What it Calculates
aov(y~x, data = d) Single-factor ANOVA, with the numbers in vector y as the dependent variable and the elements of vector x as the levels of the independent variable. The data are in data frame d.
aov(y~x + Error(w/x), data = d) Repeated Measures ANOVA, with the numbers in vector y as the dependent variable and the elements in vector x as the levels of an independent variable. Error(w/x) indicates that each element in vector w experiences all the levels of x (i.e., x is a repeated measure). The data are in data frame d.
aov(y~x*z, data = d) Two-factor ANOVA, with the numbers in vector y as the dependent variable and the elements of vectors x and z as the levels of the two independent variables. The data are in data frame d.
aov(y~x*z + Error(w/z), data = d) Mixed ANOVA, with the numbers in vector z as the dependent variable and the elements of vectors x and y as the levels of the two independent variables. Error(w/z) indicates that each element in vector w experiences all the levels of z (i.e., z is a repeated measure). The data are in data frame d.

 

Correlation and Regression

Function What it Calculates
cor(x,y) Correlation coefficient between the numbers in vector x and the numbers in vector y
cor.test(x,y) Correlation coefficient between the numbers in vector x and the numbers in vector y, along with a t-test of the significance of the correlation coefficient.
lm(y~x, data = d) Linear regression analysis with the numbers in vector y as the dependent variable and the numbers in vector x as the independent variable. Data are in data frame d.
coefficients(a) Slope and intercept of linear regression model a.
confint(a) Confidence intervals of the slope and intercept of linear regression model a
lm(y~x+z, data = d) Multiple regression analysis with the numbers in vector y as the dependent variable and the numbers in vectors x and z as the independent variables. Data are in data frame d.

When you carry out an ANOVA or a regression analysis, store the analysis in a list.

For example, a <- lm(y~x, data = d).

Then, to see the tabled results, use the summary() function:

summary(a)

Tackling machine learning with R

Machine Learning (ML) is a popular area. R provides a number of ML-related packages and functions. Here are some of them:

Machine Learning Packages and Functions

Package Function What it does
rattle rattle() Opens the Rattle Graphic User Interface
rpart rpart() Creates a decision tree
rpart.plot prp() Draws a decision tree
randomForest randomForest() Creates a random forest of decision trees
rattle printRandomForests() Prints the rules of a forest’s individual decision trees
e1071 svm() Trains a support vector machine
e1071 predict() Creates a vector of predicted classifications based on a support vector machine
kernlab ksvm() Trains a support vector machine
base R kmeans() Creates a k-means clustering analysis
nnet nnet() Creates a neural network with one hidden layer
NeuralNetTools plotnet() Draws a neural network
nnet predict() Creates a vector of predictions based on a neural network

 

Working with large(ish) databases in R

Created for statistical analysis, R has a wide array of packages and functions for dealing with large amounts of data. This selection is the tip of the iceberg’s tip:

Packages and Functions for Exploring Databases

Package Function What it does
didrooRFM findRFM() Performs a Recency, Frequency, Money analysis on a database of retail transactions
vcd assocstats() Calculates statistics for tables of categorical data
vcd assoc() Creates a graphic that shows deviations from independence in a table of categorical data
tidyverse glimpse() Provides a partial view of a data frame with the columns appearing onscreen as rows
plotrix std.error() Calculates the standard error of the mean
plyr inner_join() Joins data frames
lubridate wday() Returns day of the week of a calendar date
lubridate ymd() Returns a date in R date-format

Manipulating maps and images with R

Here are some packages and functions to help you get started using R to draw maps and to process images.

Packages and Functions for Plotting Maps and for Processing Images

Package Function What it does
maps map_data() Returns a data frame of latitudes and longitudes
ggmaps geocode() Returns latitude and longitude of a place-name
magick image_read() Reads an image into R and turns it into a magick object
magick image_resize() Resizes an image
magick image_rotate() Rotates an image
magick image_flip() Rotates an image on a horizontal axis
magick image_flop() Rotates an image on a vertical axis
magick image_annotate() Adds text to an image
magick image_background() Sets the background for an image
magick image_composite() Combines images
magick image_morph() Makes one image appear to gradually become (morph into) another
magick image_animate() Puts an animation into the RStudio Viewer window
magick image_apply() Applies a function to every frame in an animated GIF
magick image_write() Saves an animation as a reusable GIF

 

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Joseph Schmuller, PhD, is a veteran of more than 25 years in Information Technology. He is the author of several books, including Statistical Analysis with R For Dummies and four editions of Statistical Analysis with Excel For Dummies. In addition, he has written numerous articles and created online coursework for Lynda.com.

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